Speech delivered by Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, at the Posthumous Tribute to the 32 Combatants Fallen in Combat in Venezuela, at the José Martí Anti-Imperialist Platform, on January 16, 2026, “Year of the Centenary of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz”
(Stenographic Versions – Presidency of the Republic)
Honor and Glory to our heroes fallen in combat! (Exclamations of: “Honor and Glory!”)
Relatives;
Comrades in arms and friends of our combatants;
Compatriots:
On January 3, 2026, in the darkest hour of the early dawn, while its noble people slept, Venezuela was treacherously attacked by order of the United States President Donald Trump.
Once again, now in his native land, Bolívar’s visionary statement was confirmed that “the United States seems destined by providence to plague America with miseries in the name of liberty,” and Ernesto Che Guevara’s warning that “imperialism cannot be trusted, not even a little.”
Bombs and kidnapping were the response of the United States to the declarations of the Venezuelan President, who hours earlier had shown willingness to dialogue on any matter.
That was a difficult dawn for Cuba, upon receiving the first news of the treacherous attack against several states of the brother country where hundreds of Cuban collaborators fulfill missions.
Bitter hours passed between indignation and helplessness after learning that President Nicolás Maduro Moros and his wife Cilia Flores had been kidnapped.
Those of us who have the brave combatants of Personal Security as part of our family and know their spartan determination to defend the lives under their protection, knew, even before confirmation, that they would behave like titans until their last battle (Applause).
“Only over my dead body will they be able to take or assassinate the President,” had been declared more than once by First Colonel Humberto Alfonso Roca, head of the small group of Cubans who that dawn protected the presidential couple at the cost of their own lives (Applause).
They, along with the combatants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces who also fell under the attackers’ bombardment, sum up in their admirable service records all the qualities that distinguish heroes—Cuban heroes! (Applause.)
Thus, they crossed national borders to become paradigms in the history of struggles for a united America, a dream still unrealized by Bolívar and Martí.
The sacred remains of our 32 compatriots arrived yesterday in the homeland as eternal soldiers of the integration we owe each other. They are the only possible measure of the courage and character of Cubans, loyal to a brotherhood forged since the times of Bolívar, exalted by Martí, and now legendary due to the close relationship between Fidel and Chávez, leaders of regional integration, who in a few years have promoted literacy, restored vision, and brought medical and educational services to millions of Venezuelans and other inhabitants of our Latin America and the Caribbean (Applause).
The promoters of the attack and kidnapping of President Maduro and his wife, resorting to the most abominable methods of fascism, wove a thick cloud of lies and defamation against the Bolivarian leaders before cowardly launching themselves upon Venezuela.
Blatantly disregarding the limits of International Law, which until that day guaranteed a minimum civilized coexistence among nations, the current U.S. administration opened the door to an era of barbarism, plunder, and neo-fascism, regardless of what this may mean in terms of more war, destruction, and death.
The news of the aggression hit us hard. For more than 25 years Cuba and Venezuela have shared ideals and works in favor of a better possible world, willing to achieve full justice through the paths of socialism, but each country with its own methods and different realities.
Only those who do not understand the value of friendship, solidarity, and cooperation forged among peoples can confuse the relationship between Cubans and Venezuelans as a mere business or as a vulgar exchange of products and services.
Above all, Cubans and Venezuelans are brothers! (Applause.)
Giving our own blood and even our lives for a brotherly people may surprise others, but not Cubans.
U.S. officials have recognized with astonishment, but also with undeniable admiration, the bravery of this handful of men who, despite marked disadvantages in forces and firepower, offered fierce resistance to the kidnappers, even injuring several of their operatives and partially disabling, as far as we know today, one of their means of transportation.
No matter how much they insist on glorifying their soldiers camouflaged with helmets and bulletproof vests, night vision goggles, overprotected by planes, helicopters, and swarms of drones, amid intentional blackouts, the assault by the Delta terrorists was not the stroll they have sold to the world.
One day we will know the whole truth, but not even Trump has been able to deny that several attackers were wounded.
Our brave fighters, with conventional weapons and no vests other than their morale and loyalty to the mission they carried out, fought to the death and struck their adversaries! (Applause.)
None were supermen; they were honorable soldiers, trained in the ethical school of Fidel and Raúl, in patriotism, anti-imperialism, and unity; heirs of the ideology of Antonio Maceo, who immortalized Baraguá with his manly refusal to negotiate a peace without freedom, and of Juan Almeida, who shouted amid a rain of bullets in a remote sugarcane field: "No one surrenders here!" (Applause.)
The current Emperor of the White House and his infamous Secretary of State have not stopped threatening us. "I don’t think much more pressure can be applied," Trump said in a tacit acknowledgment of the extreme levels to which the blockade imposed on Cuba for more than six decades has escalated.
"Go in and destroy the place" is what, according to his imperial conception, remains for them to subdue us. The grotesque phrase, which has awakened deep indignation among the Cuban people, can only be interpreted as an incitement to a ruthless massacre of a country that has never promoted hatred toward another.
Cuban patriotism was expressed very early by Martí in Abdala: "Love, mother, for the homeland / is not the ridiculous love for the land, / nor for the grass under our feet; / it is the invincible hatred for those who oppress it, / it is the eternal resentment toward those who attack it" (Applause).
The Cuban people are not anti-imperialist by manual. Imperialism made us anti-imperialists. But not only Cuba; the world will become increasingly anti-imperialist as a result of this assault on all international norms, this offense to intelligence and human dignity, this act of criminal arrogance with which a sovereign state is attacked by an empire that despises the rest of the nations.
All the victories of the Cuban people are associated with the strength of unity. Every time the patriotic forces were divided, we lost. Every time they united, we won. The nation's enemies know this well and therefore they bet on breaking that unity.
Their current threats remind us of those from almost every American administration, controlled by the so-called Hawks, proponents of war. Do the current hawks know that the revolutionary defense strategy, known as the War of the Entire People, was born in response to the worst threats from other hawks? Do they know how much their warmongering predecessors invested in the "post-Castro era," after failing in every attempt to destroy an indestructible leadership?
In recent days, the young people have viralized on social networks the anecdote about the little fish (picúa), lived and narrated by Fidel. He recounts that, while swimming underwater, he saw a picúa coming toward him and his first reaction was to retreat; but he quickly reconsidered and lunged toward the aggressive fish, which disappeared from his sight. That is how we must act in the face of the empire, which is a little fish, piranha, shark, and vermin (Applause). But I insist and reiterate one fact: it is Cuban youth who viralized that video on social media.
Here we are, not one, but millions continuing the work of Fidel, of Raúl, and their heroic generation. They would have to kidnap millions or wipe us off the map, and even then the ghost of this small archipelago, which they had to pulverize because they could not subdue it, would haunt them forever (Applause).
No, imperialist gentlemen, we are absolutely not afraid of you! And, as Fidel said, we do not like being threatened. You will not intimidate us! (Applause.)
Like the reeds tied in the center of the shield, unity is the most powerful weapon of our Revolution.
Dear compatriots:
Several comrades who stood on the front lines are already home, their bodies filled with shrapnel fragments as medals of valor. One of them, Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Márquez, was the one who struck a helicopter and who knows how many of its crew. He did so firing his anti-aircraft weapon, despite being wounded and bleeding heavily from a leg (Applause).
Courage is the word everyone uses to describe the confrontation with the aggressors. And they name First Colonel Lázaro Evangelio Rodríguez Rodríguez, who led the attempt to rescue the first fallen, until one of the enemy drones reached him: “I was wounded. Long live Cuba!” were his last words (Applause).
When it seems that the world is burying its last utopia, that money and technology are above all human dreams, that humanity grows weary, right at that moment, 32 brave Cubans offer their lives and grow greater, in a fierce battle until the last bullet! Until their last breath! (Exclamations of: “Glory!”) There are no enemies capable of intimidating such heroism!
The promising youth of most of those fallen in combat brings to our memory Martí’s verses dedicated to the eight medical students killed by the Spanish metropolis in 1871: “Beloved corpses, you who one day / Were the dreams of my homeland.” Everything we know about their personal stories, the love and bravery that distinguished their actions, the commitment, dedication, and sacrifice with which they went into battle makes the pain sharper; a pain that does not diminish, but rather elevates the patriotism and generosity of Cubans even more (Applause and exclamations of: “Long live!”). Today, Martí’s unsurpassable definition that “Homeland is humanity” has 32 new faces, 32 new stories.
They not only defended the sovereignty of Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro, and his wife Cilia Flores; they defended human dignity, peace, the honor of Cuba and our Americas. They were the sword and shield of our peoples against the advance of fascism. And they will forever be a symbol, proof that there is no small people when its dignity is so firm! (Applause.)
Thank you for your courage and example, comrades! (Applause.)
Today we embrace their loved ones: mothers, fathers, wives, children, grandchildren, brothers, grandparents, their comrades-in-arms, and their friends. “Pain is not shared,” said the Commander in Chief at the mourning farewell to the martyrs of Barbados. “Pain multiplies. (...) And when a vigorous and virile people cries, injustice trembles!” (Applause and exclamations of: “Injustice trembles!”) Silvio sang then: “Let injustice tremble when Fidel’s fighting people cries.”
Cuba neither threatens nor challenges! Cuba is a land of peace! It was here in Havana, and at Cuba’s initiative, that 12 years ago, during the II CELAC Summit, Latin America and the Caribbean were proclaimed a Zone of Peace, a conquest brutally wounded by the fascist strike in Venezuela.
That vocation for peace in no way diminishes the readiness to fight in defense of sovereignty and territorial integrity. If we were ever attacked, we would fight with the same fierceness inherited from several generations of brave Cuban combatants—from the wars of independence in the 19th century, the Sierra Maestra, the underground struggle, and Africa in the 20th century, to Caracas in this 21st century. There is no possible surrender or capitulation, nor any understanding based on coercion or intimidation.
Cuba does not have to make any political concessions, nor will this ever be on the negotiation table for an understanding between Cuba and the United States. It is important that this is understood: we will always be willing to engage in dialogue and improve relations between the two countries, but on equal terms and based on mutual respect. It has been this way for more than six decades. History will not be different now!
To the empire that threatens us, we say: We are millions of Cubans! We are a people ready to fight, if attacked, with the same unity and fierceness as the 32 Cubans who fell on January 3.
Compatriots:
Let us march united! And in memory of their heroic example, let us swear:
Homeland or Death!
We will triumph! (Exclamations of: "We will triumph!")
Homeland or Death!
We will triumph! (Exclamations of: "We will triumph!")
Homeland or Death!
We will triumph! (Exclamations of: "We will triumph!")
Until victory, always! (Exclamations of: "Always!")
(Exclamations of: "Until victory, always!, and Long live the Revolution!")
(Applause.)
We are a people ready to fight, if attacked, with the same unity and fierceness as the 32 Cubans who fell on January 3rd. Photo: X account of Roberto Morales Ojeda
Like the reeds tied in the center of the shield, unity is the most powerful weapon of our Revolution. Photo: Juvenal Balán
Today the unsurpassable Martian definition that "Homeland is humanity" has 32 new faces, 32 new stories. Photo: Juvenal Balán
